Chinese Tech CEOs Pledge to Walk ‘Red’ Road

A tide of "red" pride sweeping through China ahead of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party may have reached a new strandline this week, swallowing up several of the country’s tech industry titans.

Sina Weibo

A screenshot of Xinhua's account on Sina Weibo shows Baidu CEO Robin Li delivering a speech in front of the museum dedicated to the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai.

More than 60 of the biggest names from China’s high-flying Internet sector gathered recently at a museum marking the site of the CPC’s First National Congress on Xingye Road in Shanghai to sing revolutionary songs and attend a Party lecture, according to reports from the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Among those taking part in the tour were some of the country’s most successful private businessmen, including Baidu founder and CEO Robin Li, Sina CEO Charles Chao and Sohu CEO Charles Zhang.

“Walking the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the well-spring of strength that will allow the Chinese Internet to continue its healthy and rapid development,” Mr. Li was quoted as saying on Xinhua’s Sina Weibo microblog feed.

Photos posted to the Xinhua Weibo feed show Messrs. Li and Chao delivering comments in front of a large red backdrop with the words "Red Birthplace, Eternal Monument." In another photo published on the website of business magazine Caixin, Mr. Li can been seen smiling and waving a red flag in front the museum.

The Internet executives aren't the only high-profile figures to be drafted into the Party's pre-anniversary propaganda push. Some of the biggest names in Chinese film – including actress Zhang Ziyi, actor Chow Yun-fat and director John Woo – are slated in appear in "Beginning of the Great Revival," a movie commissioned by the country’s film regulator that traces Chinese history from the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 to the founding of the CCP in 1921 and is scheduled to hit theaters nationwide next Wednesday.

While the Party has a long tradition of employing famous entertainers to spread its message, however, it's far less common to see entrepreneurs put to the task – not least because their massive wealth clashes so starkly with the platform of self-sacrifice and common struggle on which the Party was founded nearly a century ago.

But if Mr. Li and his fellow executives make imperfect spokesmen for the Party, their willingness to toe the Party line might at least bring some peace of mind to leaders in Beijing grown increasingly nervous over the disruptive potential of the Internet in the wake of Web-powered uprisings in the Middle East.

And with a once-in-a-decade leadership change coming up in 2012, it certainly can’t hurt to help China’s stars of business remember their place in the hierarchy.

As Xinhua quoted Sina’s Mr. Chao saying: "The way the Chinese Communist Party was able, in all manner of difficult circumstances, to grasp the situation, formulate a strategy and concentrate power – this is deeper than anything found in an MBA textbook."